


The Witch and the Jedi

by Kablob



Series: Matter Of Time [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Trippy Force Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-16
Packaged: 2018-03-01 17:27:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2781596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kablob/pseuds/Kablob
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ahsoka Tano and Asajj Ventress discovered they had many things in common after Ahsoka left the Jedi Order, among them being their mutual need for a new lightsaber. Months later, as the Clone Wars near their end, they journey together to the frozen planet of Ilum on a search for lightsaber crystals. But a trip to Ilum is not a simple thing, and both of them will find an uncomfortable reminder of their past there - and a hint of their future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Witch and the Jedi

 

Ahsoka Tano had always considered hyperspace to be strangely beautiful. The swirling tunnel of light bathed the inside of the cockpit in an eerie blue light, like something out of a dream. Stars, planets, and nebulae were distorted into darker streaks of blue, echoes of matter rather than matter itself. Still, Togruta had evolved in the plains and valleys of Shili, not here, and being there always gave her the faintest sense that she was trespassing in something beyond her comprehension. Not to mention that looking at it for too long made her head spin. Feeling the onset of a headache, Ahsoka averted her eyes and looked down at her instrument panel. The cockpit of the surplus Y-Wing fighter she piloted was too cramped to look anywhere else. She noted the time on the chronometer: time to reversion was less than five minutes away. Her thoughts went to her companion passed out in the gunner position, so Ahsoka opened the comm to speak to her.

"Hey Ventress, we're almost there, wake up." A groan and what sounded like a muffled promise of death was the only response she got. Ahsoka shook her head. If someone had told her five months ago that she'd be flying a ship through the most remote reaches of the galaxy with _Asajj Ventress_ of all people, she would have asked what kind of spice they had been taking.

But then if someone had told her Barriss would betray her, the Council would expel and abandon her, and she would leave the Jedi Order on her own she would have laughed in their face. But here she was. The hardest thing that Ahsoka had ever done was to not look back as she walked down the Temple steps for the last time. If she had looked back at Anakin she wasn't sure she'd be able to go through with it. She had wandered through the upper level of Coruscant for hours, lost in her own thoughts, trying to wrap her head around the enormity of what she'd done. Less than a week before that she had been Padawan Ahsoka Tano, Commander in the Grand Army of the Republic, apprentice of the Chosen One himself. That morning she had been Ahsoka Tano, accused traitor, terrorist, and mass murderer, on trial for her life. And at that moment as she tried to put as much distance between herself and her former home as possible, she had absolutely no idea what she was, or even where she was going. Eventually night had fallen, and she had passed out on a public bench. That's where Asajj had found her. _"_ _Pleasant dreams, Jedi?"_ she had asked.  _"_ _What's Skywalker's little pet doing sleeping out here? Those Jedi scum kick you out again?"_

She smiled at the memory. Asajj had been incredulous at the news of what Ahsoka had done, and insisted on getting her a meal to celebrate. Ahsoka had been wary of accepting the offer, but her stomach had overruled her lack of trust. And she had felt something, a tremor in the Force, that suggested to her that just maybe there was a chance that Ventress had no ulterior motive at all. So Ahsoka had introduced her to Dex's Diner - the Besalisk owner of which had nearly crushed her in his four-armed embrace, assuring her often and loudly that he had never beleived what the HoloNet had said about her, not for a moment. Eventually he left them alone, so Ahsoka filled the silence between her and Ventress, telling her the whole story of the nightmare Barriss had put her through. Using that - and, admittedly, some alcohol - she managed to pry some stories out of the ex-Sith turned bounty hunter.  It seemed that every time Ventress found something resembling a family, it was violently ripped away from her. Hearing how much pain and betrayal the Dathomirian had gone through had put her own issues in perspective. Plo Koon had not died in her arms, Anakin had not tried to have her killed, and she had not been the sole survivor of a genocide. Ahsoka had always seen Ventress as the uncaring, murderous Sith that she had wanted people to see. But that night in an empty diner in a lonely corner of Coruscant, Ahsoka had seen that Ventress had the potential to be so much more, and she was surprised to find that she wanted to help her former enemy.

But she knew Ventress was not going to just let some ex-Padawan hang around her for no reason. So she proposed this expedition to her, knowing it would intrigue Asajj too much to turn down. It had taken them five months to get enough credits together to buy this salvaged Y-Wing, mostly by hunting various petty criminals with bounties on their heads in the depths of Coruscant. It wouldn't have taken so long if it wasn't for Ahsoka's stubborn refusal to take the shadier bounties. Asajj's resistance to that had been less than Ahsoka expected, and she felt like Ventress was starting to warm up to her. At the very least she probably wasn't going to kill her in her sleep now. Probably.

But luckily for her, one of the surprising number of things they had in common was that they had both lost their lightsabers to Barriss Offee's plot: Ahsoka's vanished into the deepest pits of Coruscant and Ventress' kept by the Jedi as evidence.

A string of low-pitched beeps issued from the cheap astromech that came with the ship, warning that they were about to hit a gravity well.

  
"Alright Ventress, get ready to stretch your legs." Ahsoka hit the decelerator, and the swirling vortex outside resolved into star-lines that quickly reverted into realspace. The blue-white orb of a frozen planet was in front of them, orbiting a distant star.

"So this is the famous Ilum?" Ventress squinted out the dome of her turret. "Doesn't look like much."

Ahsoka hit the accelerator, and the sublight engines awoke even more reluctantly than Ventress had. "What did you expect? A big ball of light floating in space? I hope you don't mind the cold."

"It's already freezing in here!" Asajj complained.

"Well maybe you would rather we got changed in the ship?" Ahsoka shot back. "It's a bit cramped, if you haven't noticed." Both of them had put on cold weather gear before leaving, similar hooded off-white jumpsuits purchased from a second-hand Pantoran trader.

"Whatever. I still don't see why I couldn't find this place myself." Asajj cracked the kinks out of her neck audibly.

"Hey, you want to wander around in hyperspace for weeks on end, be my guest." Ahsoka brushed frost off of one of the readouts while she guided the craft down through the atmosphere. The astromech was blathering on about the outside temperature; Ahsoka ignored the droid. It was no Artoo, that was for sure. _Not even an Arseven,_ she thought, wondering what had become of her faithful navigator. Probably assigned to another Jedi by now. Already the stars were growing faint as they descended, space shifting from black to a dark blue that steadily lightened.  _Hopefully this will be less eventful than the last time I was here..._

 

* * *

 

The Y-Wing touched down with a metallic groan, seeming grateful for the rest. The ship had been salvaged by a junk dealer from some battlefield, and Ahsoka suspected that it had suffered a lot more damage than the dealer let on. She popped the cockpit, and immediately received a blast of snow in the face.  _As hospitable as ever,_ she thought. Ahsoka pulled the hood over her montrals and lowered the green-tinted goggles over her eyes before climbing out, her legs protesting the sudden movement after hours crammed into the confined space.

"R3, stay with the ship." The droid beeped in relief. Ahsoka ducked under the fuselage, noticing that the landing gear was already being obscured by snow. "And keep the heaters on. I want to be able to find this thing when we're done." Ventress jumped down while Ahsoka opened the cargo bay.

"Tell me it's not far." Ventress said, her voice muffled by the wind.

"It's just behind that cliff over there." Ahsoka pulled out the backpack filled with their supplies, then the two started the trek across the frozen plain. The parts needed to build a lightsaber were surprisingly common, with the exception of one. They had been able to get the focusing lenses, emitter matrices, power cells, and all the various bits of metal needed from junk dealers around Coruscant. Everything but the most important part.

After trudging through the snow for another fifty meters or so Ahsoka could see a circular platform ahead, kept free of snow by a weak repulsor field. As she got closer she could make out a frost-encrusted symbol of the Force emblazoned on it.

"This is it! The entrance is frozen over, we're going to have to break it to get in!" She had to yell to be heard over the wind.

"Would it kill the Jedi to put up a simple door?!" Ventress shouted back.

The pair reached out their hands and concentrated on the ice. After a moment there was a loud  _crack_ , quickly followed by another. The ice shattered, falling down in a cascade that billowed up in a cloud at the bottom. When it dispersed, the entrance of the Jedi temple on Ilum was revealed.

"It probably would," Ahsoka muttered to herself. The Order sure loved it's rituals...

It wasn't any warmer inside the Temple than outside, but at least it sheltered them from the snow. The huge circular chamber looked the same as it had when Ahsoka brought the younglings on their Gathering, dominated by crystalline pillars and four giant statues of Jedi Masters, the walls and floor covered in strange engravings.

Ventress removed her goggles and took the sight in. "Not bad for the Jedi."

Ahsoka rolled her eyes. Asajj's casual hatred of the Jedi had rankled her at first, but she had long gotten used to it. _And it's not like I have much reason to defend them_ , she thought sullenly. Pushing the thought away, Ahsoka removed her own goggles and turned to smirk at her companion. "You might be the first non-Jedi to come here in peace in thousands of years, Ventress. You should be honored."

"You aren't a Jedi either, you know. You can pull the stick out any day now." Asajj stopped in the center of the chamber, where Master Yoda had been sitting just a few months earlier. "So where do we go from here?"

Ahsoka propped her backpack against one of the statues and gestured at the frozen wall of the back of the room. "Through there."

Asajj scoffed and shook her head. "The same test twice? Not very imaginative." Ahsoka looked up towards the ceiling.

"Oh no, you'll like this next part, trust me." She used the Force to open the window at the top of the chamber. The sunlight poured through into the elaborate network of crystals above, focused - not unlike a lightsaber blade - into a beam that shot into the frame around the ice door. The sheet of ice cracked and softened, quickly melting entirely, flowing down into drainage ducts in the floor. The entrance to the crystal caves beckoned, and for the third time in her life it took Ahsoka's breath away.

Ventress didn't show it, but Ahsoka could tell even she was impressed. "Fancy, if a bit impractical."

Ahsoka shook her head. "You're impossible." They entered into the dimly lit corridor beyond.

"I'm surprised you've never been here before, Ventress," Ahsoka commented. "I remember that the Seps tried to blow this place up back near the beginning of the war."

Asajj raised her hands defensively. "Hey, I wasn't part of that!" It was true though, Ahsoka recalled. The temple would have been destroyed by mine-laying chameleon droids if it wasn't for the two Jedi who happened to be inside. Ahsoka stopped her thought there. That was the _last_ thing she wanted to think about.

She changed the subject. "We'll have to hurry, the door will refreeze soon, and we'll be trapped for the better part of a month."

Ventress gave her a confused look. "Couldn't we just smash it like we did the first door?"

Ahsoka instantly let out a burst of laughter. "Yeah, they just tell the younglings that so they'll work together. So congratulations, you're officially smarter than they are." They came to the crossroads, several doorways leading off in different directions.

"I thought this place was supposed to be full of crystals. You better not be lying, Tano." Asajj glared at her.

Ahsoka suppressed a smile. "You should know by now that it's never that easy. Only the crystal meant for you will be visible. Open your mind and let the Force guide you to it." She had never realized how much fun it was being the vague mentor. Though it was also a great way to cover up how little she really knew about the caves of Ilum. _I guess the Jedi Masters were just as clueless...as if I needed more proof of that._

Asajj groaned impatiently. "Fine, I'll do it the Jedi way." She always managed to say  _Jedi_  like it was some horrible curse.

"Meet you back at the entrance." Ahsoka turned away and closed her eyes, clearing her mind. She listened to the sound of Ventress' footsteps until they slowly faded away, leaving nothing but a comforting silence. Then the former Jedi opened her eyes and picked a doorway, setting off into the cave beyond.

 

Ahsoka followed the twists and turns of the tunnel, wondering how long it would take this time. Back during her group's Gathering she had been the second to find her crystal. She remembered how annoyed she'd been to come in second.  _I was such an obnoxious little idiot_ , Ahsoka thought.  _Maybe I still am_ . _Ventress sure seems to think so._  She came to a widening in the tunnel that was almost circular. Out of the corner of her eye Ahsoka noticed a dark shape in an alcove of the wall. As she went over to take a closer look it became clear it wasn't just another rock formation. It was a large pile of orange scrap metal, beginning to rust despite the cold. Ahsoka realized it was one of the chameleon droids from the Separatist attack, figuring that the cleanup crew must have missed it. It had been cut nearly in half by a lightsaber blade. Ahsoka ran her hand along the melted circuitry.

 _Was this Luminara or Barriss?_ , an unbidden thought arose in her mind. Ahsoka cried out in frustration, kicking the long dead droid.

"Do I have any memories that are safe?! Is everything going to hurt me now?!" The cave echoed with the sound of her voice.

"They only hurt if you let them," a voice said from behind her. Startled, Ahsoka whirled around to see a familiar figure standing at the other side of the cave.

She had been expecting something out of the ordinary here, but...

"It would be you, wouldn't it?" Ahsoka scowled. "There's any number of people in my head the Force could've thrown at me, and it just had to pick _you_."

"You wouldn't see me if you didn't think about me so much." Barriss Offee looked exactly the same as she had in the trial room, down to the hands bound behind her back.

Ahsoka took a step closer to the apparition, clenching her fist so hard she felt her fingers start to go numb. "Don't lecture me, Barriss! You have no right!"

"You left because you saw the same truth I did, Ahsoka." The vision didn't react to Ahsoka's accusation. "The Jedi have fallen already."

This time Ahsoka was too angry to contain it. She closed the remaining distance in a heartbeat, forcefully jabbing an accusing finger at her former friend. "Don't you  _dare_  compare me to you! You killed dozens of people and you betrayed me!"

Again, Barriss did not hear her. "Strange that someone who doesn't want to be a Jedi would come looking for a lightsaber crystal."

"I'd still have my first lightsaber if it wasn't for you! I'd still be a Jedi if it wasn't for you!" And then came the thought that Ahsoka had been trying not to think for months, spilling out before it had even fully formed. "I should have killed you on that transport when you asked me to!" 

Her whole body shook, and not from the cold.

This time Barriss seemed to hear her, shrinking back from her words. Ice crystals formed on olive-green skin that had suddenly gone pale, just like she had appeared on the transport from Geonosis. Before she could respond another voice echoed from behind Ahsoka.

"You're right, Snips."

Ahsoka looked over her shoulder to see Anakin Skywalker leaning against the cave wall with his arms crossed, exactly as she had seen him last. "I was wrong," he said. "You should have killed her." As Anakin began walking towards them Barriss' eyes went wide with fear.

"Don't trust him Ahsoka," she pleaded. "Whatever you do, please don't trust him!" Ahsoka looked at her incredulously.

"Then who should I trust?  _You?_ " She turned her back on her, Ahsoka could not bear to look at Barriss for another second. Anakin smiled his usual cocky grin and held out his hand.

"Ahsoka, you need to come with me. I know the way to your crystal."

"Don't listen to him Ahsoka! You have no idea what he's capable of, what he can do. It's already too late to stop it, please don't let yourself get dragged down with him!" Barriss' voice had an inflection Ahsoka had never heard in it before, one of pure unrestrained terror.

She twisted herself to look back at the Mirialan's apparition, snarling in disgust. "Whatever trick of the Dark Side you are, you should know that Barriss is the worst form you could have chosen."

The shade looked down in defeat. "Don't say you weren't warned."

Ahsoka took Anakin's hand and he led her farther along the tunnel. _I don't care what you say, Barriss. I trust him with my life._ Soon he began moving faster than she could keep up, and her hand slipped out of his as he disappeared around a corner.

"Master! Wait up!" she said, running around the same corner.

_What the-_

Ahsoka skidded to a stop. Ahead of her was unmistakably a corridor of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, just as covered in ice and snow as the tunnel behind her. It was in ruins, with shattered columns and pieces of rubble strewn all about. Snow drifted down slowly through the gaps in the roof and blew through the shattered windows. Ahsoka's eyes stopped on a particular piece of debris. She slowly approached it and realized it was a body lying on it's stomach. Carefully she rolled it over and stared into Plo Koon's face. Ahsoka recoiled back in shock and slipped, landing hard on the ground. As she got to her feet she saw there were now other bodies, all long-dead and frozen, barely recognizable. Mace Windu, Shaak Ti, Luminara Unduli, and Tera Sinube lay around her, steam rising from what had to be lightsaber wounds. There were more, but she willed herself not to look at them.

"Ahsoka," Anakin's voice startled her, there was a hardness to it that she had never heard before. She turned around to see him standing in a doorway, his deactivated lightsaber in his hand, clad in a dark cloak with a hood pulled up over his head.  _This isn't right. This isn't Anakin_ , Ahsoka thought, her heart racing. Something about him just felt _wrong,_  in a way that reminded her uncomfortably of Mortis.

"You have to join me, or this will be your fate too," he said, making a sweeping gesture to the corpses. "Dead old fools, too stubborn to see their doom." He began walking towards her, and a sudden blast of wind blew his hood back. His eyes were bloodshot and yellow, burning with the power of the Dark Side.  _This is wrong, I was wrong._  She turned to flee, only to run into someone else, who knocked her down and fell on top of her, pinning her wrists painfully against the ice. 

"He's right, you know. Only by embracing me can you hope to survive." Ahsoka was hearing her own voice, looking into her own face, but it wasn't right. The other Ahsoka's eyes were yellow and bloodshot like Anakin's, alight with madness, and the veins on her face stood out like a dark web, her mouth contorted into an insane grin. She licked her lips, obviously pleased by the real Ahsoka's horror. "If you don't join him, he will kill me!" A flash of suppressed memory flew up into her mind's eye, another reminder of Mortis, another fallen Ahsoka crossing lightsabers with an uncorrupted Anakin. Just as quickly as it appeared, the memory was gone.

The other Ahsoka seemed amused at the prospect of her death. Ahsoka summoned enough strength to push off the twisted version of herself as it began laughing hysterically and stood up. Anakin was right in front of her now, and he held out his unlit lightsaber to her.

"Now do what you should have done years ago, and you will gain everything you seek." His usual sarcastic smile stood out in stark contrast to the hatred in his eyes. Numbly, she took it. Anakin moved beside her to reveal Barriss chained to the ruined wall, looking emaciated and half-dead, her eyes even more hollow than her cheeks.

"Ahsoka, I'm so sorry. I never wanted to hurt you, everything moved so fast and got out of control." Tears were freezing on Barriss' face as she spoke, her voice a dry whisper. "Please don't make my mistake. I thought I was strong enough to control it, that my own fall was the only way to rescue the Order itself from falling. But I was wrong," Barriss stopped, overcome by a tortured coughing fit. "I was so wrong. There's no controlling it," she continued. "Everything I did dragged us further into darkness. Once it gets a hold of you you'll destroy everything you loved, like I did. Please-"

Her voice cut off into tortured gasping as the false Ahsoka rose to her feet like one of Shili's night predators, closing Barriss' windpipe with a gesture of her hand. "Do it," Anakin snarled at the real Ahsoka. "Kill her!"

Ahsoka's montrals rang with the sound of her own twisted laughter. She could feel her dark counterpart's breath on her neck, her hand gently running down one of Ahsoka's lekku.

"Come on Ahsoka," she whispered. "It'll be easy. She deserves it, she used you, she wanted you dead!"

 _I can_ _'_ _t,_  Ahsoka realized.  _Not then, not now_. Barriss may have betrayed her and the Jedi, she decided. But she wasn't lost, not yet.

She still had a chance.

Anakin's voice rose to a shout. "Do it now!"

 _No._  
  
Ahsoka ignited the blue lightsaber.

"Please, Ahsoka," said Barriss. "Don't lose yourself like I did."

"Kill her!" Ahsoka's own voice snapped.

Ahsoka wrenched herself from her own twisted mirror, and drove the lightsaber blade into the hallucinated Togruta's heart.

"I don't know what you are or what any of this means," she yelled, looking from her own shocked face to Anakin's, "but I am not you, you are not Anakin, and Barriss does not deserve to die! She deserves another chance!"

The dark Ahsoka's body disintigrated into thin air, reduced to dust that disappeared into the snow. Ahsoka turned to deal with the false Anakin, only to find that he had disappeared entirely, the only evidence of his existence a set of empty, crumpled robes laying in the snow.

She turned to Barriss, and cut her bonds with a sweep of the lightsaber. Her friend stepped toward her and smiled weakly. "You are stronger than I was. The Force will be with you, Ahsoka. Always."

Ahsoka opened her mouth to respond, but before she could the entire scene faded out into a bright light.

 

Ahsoka opened her eyes to find she had passed out on the ground of the cave with the droid. Slowly, she got to her feet, brushing snow from her face, unsure if everything around her was real. After a few minutes of concentrating on her breathing, she reassured herself the disturbing vision was really over. Whatever it meant, she did not care. She was just glad to be free of it - even Mortis had not been that terrifying. Shuddering, Ahsoka went to leave. But something stopped her, a strange, high-pitched whistling she had heard only one other time in her life. She looked frantically over the room until she found the source, a faint green light emanating from under the remains of the droid. Ahsoka pushed it out of the way to discover a single green crystal hidden underneath. Smiling, she picked it up and put it in her utility pouch, then started making her way back to the entrance. 

_I wonder if Asajj had anything as weird as that happen to her..._

 

* * *

 

 

Asajj Ventress had visited a lot of strange places. Some had been truly truly hellish. But ever since she had left Rattatak, nowhere had evoked any kind of feeling from her just from her mere presence there. Ilum was different. Something about this place had her on edge, despite it's deceptive peacefulness. She wanted to get the crystal and get out of here as fast as possible, but at the rate she was going she'd be here for weeks. The twisted, frozen tunnels seemed to go on for miles, and there wasn't a sound in them. None but the sound of her footsteps, her breathing, and her thoughts. Asajj hated being alone with her memories, she wanted to forget them, they had brought her nothing but pain. But there was something here, some ripple in the Force that permeated this frozen wasteland and drew her to them. All the stories of the Jedi's crystal source told of icy tunnels shining with emerald and azure gems, stretching as far as the eye could see. All that she could see were the tunnels, and they were nothing but ordinary ice and rock. Asajj gave a frustrated yell and punched the cave wall, leaving cracks in the ice.  _Damn that horned little brat, why couldn't she have just told me how to get it?_

"Only you can know that, little one," a voice said. Asajj whirled around to a sight that made her stumble back until she felt the ice against her. _It can't be._  It was impossible, the man standing in front of her no longer existed. She had burned his body on Rattatak, while leaving the corpses of his killers for the vultures.

"You died," she managed to eventually say. The slightly illuminated figure of Ky Narec smiled knowingly back at her.

"Don't you remember what I taught you all those years ago, little one? There is no death, there is the Force." Her old Master looked at her suspiciously, as though he had just realized that what he thought was an old friend met by chance had turned out to be his sight playing tricks on him, and Asajj was nothing but a stranger. "You aren't the little one I trained though, not anymore. You've grown in some ways, and shrank back in others. Why did you turn to the Dark Side?"

Asajj turned away, the sight of him was too much for her to deal with. It brought to mind the feeling of his body collapsing in her arms, his strength fleeing him through the last breath that had almost sounded like words in her ears. Words that she had nearly driven herself mad in trying to decipher. "I wanted to make them pay for taking you from me, Master. When I was with you I had a purpose, and after you died my only purpose was revenge. And I  _had it._ All of those warlord scum are  _dead!_ " The old fury was rising again, like a white-hot star in her chest.

"And what has that brought you?" Narec had reappeared in front of her, forcing her to look at him.

"You know exactly what it brought me," Asajj yelled at the vision. "You're not my Master! He's dead, you're nothing but this blasted Jedi planet trying to turn me into one of them!" Narec disregarded her accusing glare and shook his head sadly, still wearing that knowing smile.

"And who are you, Asajj?"

She didn't have anything to say to that. Her mouth hung open while she tried to find a retort. She honestly didn't know, not in the way he meant

"I am Asajj Ventress," she finally managed, attempting to make it sound like a confident answer.

Narec stepped forward and laid his hands lightly on her shoulders. Asajj stiffened, but made no move to pull away. "And who is Asajj Ventress, then? She's not the person you've pretended to be all these years. When you were that little girl I knew on Rattatak, you thought you were a Jedi, but that isn't who you are. You're more free than a true Jedi could ever be. Their life was not for you, despite my best efforts in life. When I was gone you thought you were a Sith because you had lost yourself in your pain, but you know by now that even if there was a place for you in their Order, it would feel wrong. Even though you've ignored it for so long, you still have a sense of what was right buried down there." His words echoed all around her from the cavern walls, coming at her from every direction.

His smile was now a wide grin. "Or do you mean to tell me with a straight face that you only rescued that girl from the warlord for a bonus?"

Asajj pulled herself forcefully from his grasp. "Then who the blazes am I?! You seem to know so much about me, so tell me!"

Narec raised an eyebrow. "I don't know. You are Asajj Ventress. What that means is something that only you can define. Not me, not Dooku, not Mother Talzin." Narec crossed his hands behind his back, bringing to mind long-ago nights by a campfire, where an eager former slave girl had listened rapturously to the teachings of her savior. "You blame yourself for losing me, and for losing the Nightsisters. But all of us died because we made a choice. I chose to train you because I thought you could be someone great. The Nightsisters chose to shelter you because you were one of them and you had no where else to go. They knew what they risked, but they did it anyway. Why do you think they did that?"

"Not a clue," she spat. What was he even getting at? He could be this confounding in life too, she remembered.

Narec grinned, his eyes twinkling in amusement. "Are you so sure about that? Why did you help Ahsoka then? I know what you tell yourself, but both of us know that it's a lie. You knew even as she said it that there was no hope of her getting you a pardon. But you helped her anyway. Why is that?"

"I don't know." The anger had fled from her voice. She gave up her resistance to his questions, and now she was actually wondering what the answer was herself. Despite knowing in her head that this could not be the real Ky Narec, it all felt so _right_. Asajj wished it could be him with every fiber of her being. She felt her legs give out and let herself slide down the cave wall to the floor.

Narec crouched down to her eye level before he continued. "One day you may know why. Events are taking shape now Asajj, and the effect of them will be felt by every being in the galaxy. In the coming months you will have to make the choice the Nightsisters and I did, and answer the question. Who are you, and what do you want?" The vision began fading out. Desperate, Asajj held on to him, the arm in her grip becoming less solid by the second.

"Don't leave me alone again," she said. "Please." The word felt odd in her mouth. Her master smiled at her again. "I'll always be with you, little one, and so will everyone else you have lost. All you have to do is remember the time you spent with us, and you'll never be alone."

Asajj let go of him, and the vision faded out into nothingness. After a long while she got to her feet and searched the cavern for a crystal, only to be disappointed again. There was nothing of value in the frozen cave, not now that she was back to reality. Asajj kicked an icy rock in frustration before continuing on through the tunnels.  _Damn this planet!_ The tunnel began snaking back and forth, the rapid turns adding to her mounting anger. She started running, desperate to end this wild bantha chase, when around a bend she saw something that made her skid to a stop.

The vision hadn't ended.

A new figure stood in front of her with penetrating golden eyes, one she had once thought to be a replacement for Ky Narec. Asajj's face twisted in anger this time as she looked into the face of her other master. Dooku looked even older than she remembered, and for some inexplicable reason his hands were missing. The stumps of his arms smoked, cauterized by a lightsaber's passing.

 _He is defenseless!_   With a cry of rage she reached out with the Force and closed it around his neck. Dooku began making gasping noises as he rose into the air. Finally she would kill the treacherous bastard and have her revenge. 

 _Is that really what you want?_ Ky Narec's voice echoed in her head. 

"Of course it is! Why wouldn't it be?!" She yelled the answer at thin air. All she had to do now was twist, and Dooku's neck would snap in two. But as she watched him scrambling for breath with his now-brown eyes pleading silently, the motion just wouldn't come to her. _What was she waiting for?!_

Ky whispered to her again,  _Are you sure?_  

To her shock, it finally clicked.

It wasn't what she wanted at all. Revenge had never done anything for her, it had left her drifting in an escape pod over a distant planet, it had left her new sisters butchered by blaster and lightsaber. She didn't want revenge from Dooku; she simply didn't care what happened to him anymore. She released her grip and Dooku fell to the ground, taking deep, tortured breaths.

She closed her eyes. "Get out of my life."

When she opened them again, she saw that the Dooku vision had listened to her, and in its place stood the smiling visage of Ky Narec. Her master nodded in approval, then he disappeared too. A strange whistling was echoing through the tunnel, and Asajj could see a faint light emanating from the spot Ky had been standing. She bent down over it and dug through the ice and snow until she found a glowing yellow crystal.

Asajj smiled to herself as she pocketed it.  _Thank you, Master._  As she began the trek back to the temple she hoped Tano''s experience had been just as maddening.

 

* * *

 

 

After hours of meditation Ilum's gift of a single Force-attuned crystal had been transformed into what it had waited to be since it had formed in the cavern thousands of years ago: a lightsaber.

It had better balance than her first, Ahsoka decided as she ran through the basic stances of Shii-Cho. It's emerald blade felt quicker, it moved more naturally in her hands. It was more than a weapon, it was just like Anakin had always said. _This weapon is your life._

Ahsoka hadn't realized until that moment just how incomplete she had felt ever since her first lightsaber disappeared into the depths of Coruscant. Even if she hadn't lost it and her shoto, the Jedi wouldn't have let her keep it when she left the Order. Between Barriss, the Council, and Anakin, she'd been too busy sorting out the tangled mess in her mind to really notice it's absence. Now, for the first time in months she was beginning to feel like herself again.

Who cared if she wasn't a Jedi anymore. _It's not like there's a law keeping everyone else from owning one of these._ She gave it a flourish and sent the deadly, beautiful beam of light back inside the hilt.  _Mace Windu, eat your heart out._

She took a good look at the hilt itself for the first time. She hadn't designed it; the builders of lightsabers never do. The design just sort of… emerges as you build it in communion with the Force.

The sound of many pieces of metal clattering to the ground followed by loud, colorful cursing interrupted her inspection. _Or sometimes it doesn't._  She looked up to see Asajj Ventress at the other end of the main temple chamber, gathering up her materials from the icy floor and giving Ahsoka a glare that said:  _Say something and I'll rip you in half_. Ahsoka looked away before Ventress noticed the rapidly growing smirk on her face. She'd been surprised to learn that Asajj had never actually built a lightsaber before. Her first had been a spare built by her Master Ky Narec, and the pair lost to the Jedi had been a gift from Dooku, built by his old fallen apprentice Komari Vosa.  _Figures that even his_ Jedi _apprentices would fall,_  Ahsoka thought. Then she remembered that Qui-Gon Jinn had been Dooku's student too, making her his… great-great grand Padawan? Was that even a thing? An inner voice whispered,  _it doesn't really matter anymore, does it Ahsoka?_

She ignored it and went back to looking at her new lightsaber. It was similar to her first, but it's beveled emitter shroud slanted to one side, rather closely resembling Anakin's.  _I guess I'll always have this to remember you by, right Master?_  She smiled at the thought, but it dimmed slightly when she recalled the disturbing vision of Anakin in the cave.

Better not to think about that.

Below the emitter shroud the lightsaber was a straight silver cylinder, marred by a few control knobs and readout lights, along with a series of black stripes at the top and bottom ends. Instead of the studded ball that formed the pommel of her first saber - which Master Kenobi had always said reminded him of the lightsaber he'd carried as a Padawan - her new weapon tapered slightly at the end, reminding her of someone else's lightsaber, but she couldn't place where…

_No._

_Is Barriss going to haunt me for the rest of my life?!_

As if in an answer, Asajj's frustrated scream echoed throughout the temple chamber again as her construction attempt failed once more. This time Ahsoka couldn't help but speak up.

"Having problems, Ventress?"

Her companion shot her a look that could melt cortosis. "What do you think?!"

Ahsoka raised her hands up in defense. "Hey, I can give you some pointers, but if you're going to be like that…" She grinned mischievously.

Asajj did not look amused. "Have you been sneaking off with Skywalker when I haven't been looking? You're being just as obnoxious." She laid the parts out in front of her and went to try again.

"You don't use the Force to do it Asajj," said Ahsoka.

Ventress looked at her skeptically. "That's what you did."

Ahsoka shook her head. "No, I let the Force use  _me_."

Asajj gave out an exasperated sight. "Is there a difference?"

She couldn't help but laugh. "All the difference in the galaxy. Clear your mind and let the Force guide your hands, and find what design connects with you. It will just come together on its own."  _I hope Huyang doesn't mind me ripping him off,_ she thought.

"You know I might actually prefer you channeling Skywalker to you channeling Kenobi," Asajj grumbled, but to Ahsoka's surprise she actually seemed to follow the advice, closing her pale blue eyes and slowing her breathing before letting the pieces rise into the air and begin to take shape.

A few minutes later, and the pieces snapped together. Asajj opened her eyes to see the lightsaber floating in front of her. Ahsoka had to bite down a laugh, Asajj's wide-eyed stare of wonderment seemed so out-of-place on her face. She didn't want to interrupt the moment.

Asajj took the black-and-silver hilt and ignited it. Ahsoka was surprised at the color, a yellow that shone almost golden.

"I thought Ilum only had blue and green crystals," she thought aloud.  _Nothing here ever makes sense._  Asajj didn't seem to notice her, she was too busy running through her own basic stances. It was so strange seeing her with only one lightsaber, a straight one at that. She would have to alter her whole technique.

Asajj didn't seem to mind. She shut off the lightsaber and studied its hilt the way Ahsoka had. It had a pommel slightly wider than the rest of the black and silver-striped body, and narrowed again to a choke above the control panel before widening into the emitter shroud. It almost looked like…

"It kind of looks like Obi-Wan's," she blurted out.

Asajj snapped her head around to glare daggers at her. "It does _not!_ "

Ahsoka chuckled. Before long she was laughing, and soon after that she had doubled over on the temple floor, sure that her noise was cracking the ice on the other side of Ilum. She laughed so long and so hard that even Ventress must have cracked a smile. Ahsoka didn't even know why it was so funny.

She was just glad to find out she still knew how to laugh.

After what felt like an eternity, Ahsoka had calmed down enough to stand back up. "So, you want to test that thing out or what?" She asked, the echo of a laugh still in her voice. She ignited her own lightsaber, dialing the power down to the lowest level.

Asajj responded in kind, raising her blade in a Makashi salute. "Like you even had to ask."

Ventress was on her in a flash, and Ahsoka could barely move her blade to counter fast enough. She backpedaled rapidly, not even trying to get in an offensive strike. So much for needing to adjust. Switching tactics, Ahsoka leaped in the air, slashing down as she somersaulted over Asajj's head, then used the force of Ventress' parry to launch herself off, landing behind her back. She spun to catch Ventress in the side, but her opponent was faster, and the lightsabers clashed together in a lock.

"Looks like Skywalker did an even worse job training you than I though," Ventress taunted. "Is this really the best you can do?"

Ahsoka bared her teeth. _Oh, now it's on_. Now she was defending her master's honor. With the conviction of a righteous cause, Ahsoka pushed against Asajj's golden blade, forcing the witch to take a few steps back. But her sense of triumph was short-lived, as she felt a cold, wet blow against the back of her head. Immediately she realized that Ventress had thrown a clump of snow at her with the Force, and some of it went past her and hissed as it vaporized on contact with the lightsabers.

Grinning, Ventress used the momentary distraction to push Ahsoka's blade to the side, then there was a blinding pain as her knee slammed in between Ahsoka's legs. All the air went out of her body before she even had the chance to curse, and the next thing she knew Ahsoka was flying through the air. She landed with a thump in a pile of snow beneath one of the Jedi statues. Ahsoka gasped for breath even as she scrambled to her feet and looked around wildly for her lightsaber.

"Looking for this?" Ventress called, mockingly twirling the two lightsabers in her hands. Ahsoka was so busy working out strategies to get the weapon back from her that she almost didn't catch it when Ventress tossed the hilt to her.

"Best two out of three?" Ahsoka gasped weakly, slipping into Shien's opening stance.

Ventress cackled, and rushed her again.

 

* * *

 

In the end, it was best twenty-four out of thirty-six, and Ventress won every time. Climbing back into the Y-Wing fighter - in the turret this time - Ahsoka let out a sharp yelp of pain as one of her fresh bruises bumped against the hard metal fuselage.

"What's the matter, did I hit you too hard?" Asajj mocked her from the cockpit.

"Just wait," Ahsoka began strapping herself in, "one of these days I'll beat you." Even with them both months out of practice, that sparring match had been embarrassing. It had been even worse than her first few sparring sessions with Anakin. She had to smile at the memory of  _those_ bruises.  _Just watch me Skyguy! One of these days I'll beat you into the dirt,_  she remembered a younger, more innocent version of herself saying.  _One of these days..._

_Never thought there would be a day where I had a sparring match with Ventress instead of a duel._

"Sure," Asajj interrupted her nostalgic reminiscence. "And maybe one day the Jedi Council will realize that they're about as wise as a drunken baby Hutt." Asajj fired the ignition, and the engine responded weakly.

Ahsoka sealed the bubble turret and repressed a shudder. "Ugh, don't talk to me about baby Hutts."

A burst of Asajj's raspy laughter blared out of the comm, tinged with static. "Oh, I'd almost forgot you had to drag that slug around! Well, if it's any consolation you've definitely improved since then." There was a lurch of acceleration as the craft lifted off. "A bit."

Ahsoka rolled her eyes, then stifled a yawn. As atmosphere around them rapidly turned from white to blue to black, her eyelids started to close of their own accord. She leaned her head back against the meager headrest and let them close just as the stars around them transformed into streaks of light.

_I'll just close them for a minute..._

 

* * *

 

_I should have killed you on that transport…_

_Should have killed you…_

_Ahsoka I'm so sorry…_

_It's only a matter of time…_

_Hey, wake up…_

 

"Hey, wake up. We're about to drop out of hyperspace," Asajj's voice was slightly muffled through the intraship comm. Ahsoka blinked, the disturbing images of her dreams already fading away. She raised her head up from the panel it had rested on, annoyed to notice that one of her lekku had gone numb. The turret of a Y-Wing was not the best place to catch a nap.

"Right," Ahsoka said, not knowing what else to say. Outside the dome splotches of blue and white shot past, echoes of stars and nebula seen through the dimension of hyperspace. Just before Asajj hit the decelerator, Ahsoka felt a subtle tremor, a warning through the Force. It screamed d _anger!_ From the way she felt Asajj tense up, Ahsoka knew she had felt the same. The blue vortex ahead turned into black space and a grey planet.

Along with half of a Separatist cruiser right in front of them.

Asajj swore, yanking back on the stick just in time. Their hull missed the wreck with meters to spare. The sight behind it took Ahsoka's breath away, even as her hands automatically activated the turret and began working the controls. The hulks of Republic and Separatist ships alike drifted in space, some beginning to descend through the atmosphere. A haze of smoke covered the sections of the planet where the wrecks had impacted.

Suddenly she was afraid.

_Anakin is in this battle._

She knew it. Even if they were no longer Master and Apprentice, their bond through the Force still existed. Anakin has lived through hundreds of battles, she told herself. This one was no different. But it was. If Coruscant was attacked, then what had happened to the Jedi Temple? What if the droids attacked it?

 _Why do you care,_  that doubting voice whispered.  _They weren't so worried about_ you _._  She banished the thought back to whatever dark corner of her mind it had emerged from.  _That doesn't mean I have to hate them!_

"Did you freeze up on me Tano?!" Asajj asked. Only then did Ahsoka notice that she'd been trying to talk to her for a while now. She pressed the talk button.

"Sorry, Jedi thing. Is the battle still on?"

Asajj sighed. "No, it looks like we just missed it." She sounded a bit disappointed. "Been listening to the comm. Sounds like our friend the General tried to kidnap Palpatine and those two idiots-" Ahsoka knew _exactly_ who she meant by that- "got him back. So Grievous did what he does best and ran for his-" she stopped suddenly, presumably listening to a new transmission coming in. And then, for no apparent reason, she started laughing. Ahsoka had heard her laugh many times before, but never anything like this. This wasn't the deranged cackle from their duel on the  _Tranquility_  or her usual bitter, sarcastic chuckle. She sounded absolutely  _hysterical._

"Uhh...Ventress?" she said uncertainly. "Are you alright?" The ship jerked to the side, making her instinctively suck her breath in. "Damn it, Ventress, watch where you're going! What in the Force has gotten into you?"

"Am I alright?!" Ventress gasped out, forcing herself to calm down, correcting the battered fighter's course. "Oh yes, I've never been better."

 

* * *

 

 

Asajj Ventress rose a bottle of some dubious green liquid over her head and yelled a phrase into the crowded bar that Ahsoka would have sworn she'd never hear from the one-time Sith in a billion years.

"To Anakin Skywalker!"

The pro-Republic patrons of the bar repeated her in a dozen languages and knocked back their beverages of choice, Ahsoka the loudest of all though she was only drinking a cup of tarine tea. For years now she'd thought that one day Count Dooku would meet his fate at the end of Anakin's blade. He was the Chosen One, after all; destined to destroy the Sith. Any doubts about that were cleared up on Mortis.  _Just about the only thing that was clear on that blasted planet._  Ahsoka swallowed the last of her tea.  _If it even was a planet._

And while Asajj claimed to have given up on revenge against her old Sith master months ago, she was sure going to take the opportunity to dance on his grave.

"What a damn fool," she was saying now, her normally pale cheeks flushed with color from whatever it was she was drinking. "Getting himself killed by Skywalker?! Ha! You know how many times I've lived through fights with him?" She directed the question to no one in particular, most of the other patrons having gone back to their own business.

Ahsoka stifled a grin. "About as many times as he's beaten the stuffing out of you?"

Asajj's customary glare was unaffected by her inebriation. "Funny." She turned back to the bottle that was already half empty.  _At this rate I'll have to carry her out of here._

The bar's holoscreens were attuned to some news network, showing the burning wreck that had once been the Separatist flagship while going on about the latest exploits of the  _Hero With No Fear_ , as the Holo-Net loved to call him. The irony of it wasn't lost on her.

Anakin was afraid of so many things.

"I know he's supposed to be a great pilot," a familiar voice was saying next to her. "But how the heck did General Skywalker manage to land that thing?"

Ahsoka turned to see a clone trooper was sitting on the stool next to her. Something about him struck her as instantly familiar, she got a sense like she had met this particular trooper before. "Well, the one thing Anakin is better at than flying is crashing," Ahsoka said, a slight laugh in her voice.  _Almost wish I was with him. If only that didn't mean being with everyone else._

The clone looked at her curiously. "How would you know the General then?" There was a flash of recognition on his face. His eyes widened slightly, and he broke into a grin. "The voice is familiar..." he started.

Ahsoka finished for him. "The face even more so!" The clone cracked a grin. That joke between clones and Jedi was as old as the war itself, but both sides still got a kick out of it. His eyes flicked down to the lightsaber on her belt.

"Jedi, then? I swear that we've served together before."

"Well, I was," Ahsoka muttered glumly. It seemed to give him the last clue he needed. His face lit up and he smiled even as his cheeks reddened slightly.

"Commander Tano! I'm sorry I didn't recognize you at first, you look...different from the last time we met."

Ahsoka had to repress a cringe at the military title. "Just Ahsoka, now. And don't worry about it, I still haven't placed you. I definitely remember you though!" The name was just on the tip of her tongue, but embarrassingly she still couldn't recall it.

"CL-9521, Tango Company, 501st Legion. My friends call me Pulsar," he said, knocking back a drink. "Sorry for trying to kill you."

That's where she knew him from!  _Geonosis._  Well, the part after Geonosis. "Sorry for almost doing the same."

She'd had nightmares about those blasted worms for weeks.

Pulsar shrugged. "Well you did give me a nasty case of hypothermia. Not complaining."

Ahsoka shivered at the memory. "Hey, at least you were wearing armor. I wasn't the warmest dresser back in the day." Something he had said earlier registered in her mind. "Wait, C _L_? You got promoted?"

Pulsar grimaced and took another drink. "Yeah, after Trap was killed."

"Oh." She looked down at the bartop.

_It always comes back to Barriss._

She felt a wave of embarrassment roll off of Pulsar as he realized where he'd sent her thoughts to. "Hey, for what it's worth I never believed what they said about you, Commander."

Ahsoka forced herself to smile. "Thanks, Pulsar." She couldn't help but wonder if it was the truth, but she didn't detect any hint of falsehood from him. More importantly, she didn't want to know. "I just… keep getting reminded of her lately." Pulsar said something in response, but her mind had already flashed back to the cave on Ilum, Barriss' half frozen body in the ruins of the Jedi Temple…

 _Wait, what was that?_   "What'd you just say?" Ahsoka wasn't sure she had heard him right.

"I said you probably won't anymore. You haven't heard?" He looked surprised.

"Heard what?" She had a bad feeling about this, like the pit of her stomach was sinking to the stained floor beneath her.

"Seps broke into the base that traitor was being held at during the battle and tried to rescue her. The Home Guard didn't let them. Kinda ironic, her execution was scheduled for today anyway."

It took a moment for Ahsoka to process what she was hearing. Barriss was dead. Executed. Killed.  _Dead._  She should feel relieved, but for some reason she just wanted to vomit.  _Oh, Barriss. Why did you do it?_  She had wanted to visit her in her cell and demand answers. She'd gone over the hypothetical conversation a hundred times in her head. And now it was too late. She'd never get the chance, never see her again, never hear her voice.

"I swear, first Krell, now Offee, who's going to snap next?" He shook his head. "I heard she managed to kill Commander Fox and a dozen clones before she went down,  _and_ went toe-to-toe with General Unduli. And the bastards still got away with Tambor and Poggle. Still, good to know she won't be destroying anyone else."

Ahsoka hesitated. "I… yes."  _Why do I care?_  Pulsar's choice of words had been perfect. Barriss hadn't just killed dozens of people, she'd destroyed them along with her best friend. Completely. Ahsoka was only now putting the shattered pieces of her life back together.  _What could have driven her to it?_

_Why didn't she just talk to me?_

Ahsoka pictured the Mirialan extremist being gunned down by a squad of clones.  _She didn't deserve that._

But everything she had done said that  _yes_ , she had deserved it. She'd fallen to the dark side, right?

_Right?!_

So why was Ahsoka so upset?

She barely noticed Pulsar saying it was good to run into her and walking away to join a group of his brothers. Asajj had come back, with a new bottle of something equally dubious-looking.

"What are you so torn up about? This is a time for celebration!" _Great, now I've got a drunk ex-Sith assassin to deal with on top of this._

Ahsoka looked up wearily. "Am I really that easy to read?"

"Easy as the label of this bottle," Asajj said, glancing down at it. "Actually, I'm not sure  _what_  language this is in..." she muttered. "Is that Iridonian?"

"I just found out that Barriss Offee was killed," Ahsoka said, ignoring her. Saying it out loud felt strange.

Asajj looked up, surprised. "What, that  _schutta_  that stole my lightsabers?" Ahsoka figured Asajj would respond as such.  _If I told her how I feel about it she'd think I was insane. I guess that's a good sign?_  Asajj continued. "Like I said, time for celebrating. Here, try this." She poured some of the liquid in Ahsoka's empty cup.

Ahsoka was glad for the distraction, but she still looked at it suspiciously. "This is… it's green."

"Oh come on, you've been away from those uptight bastards for months now. You've got to take that stick out of your rear some time," Asajj laughed.  _Well, she's already drank a whole bottle of this stuff and she's still standing, it can't be too strong._

 _Oh, to hell with it._ She downed the glass and immediately spat it out on the floor. It tasted like starship fuel and burned in her throat like the lava flows of Mustafar.

"How- how the-" Ahsoka nearly fell out of her chair as another violent coughing fit hit her. "How the Force do you  _drink_  this stuff?!"

Asajj slapped her on the back, something she never would have done sober. "Tano, you've taken your first step into a larger world."

Ahsoka had to laugh at that, or at least as much as she could between coughs.  _Maybe she's right._  There was a whole galaxy out there for her to discover who she was in. And with Dooku dead the war would be over in a matter of months. Barriss would have her peace after all.

**Author's Note:**

> For those wondering why I killed off Barriss so anticlimactically, know that Pulsar's information is not entirely accurate. For the full story of Barriss' "death", see my story Death of a Jedi, which occurs at the same time as this one.
> 
> Also, no, Ky Narec is not a Force ghost. He's a regular Force vision.


End file.
